"Transformed and Called"
Andries J. Coetzee
February 7, 2010
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church
1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11
Scripture Readings: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
Luke 5:1-11
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets." When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Sermon: “Transformed and Called”
As I read this scripture I am always amazed by Simon, James and John’s reaction to Jesus’ invitation and their willingness to leave everything behind to follow him. To me this is one of those readings that makes us feel guilty about our own commitment to the Gospel because of our own reluctance to leave behind family, friends, and possessions.
Kate Huye, a Christian writer for the United Church of Christ has it right when she writes that “we have difficulty imagining what it means to ‘leave it all behind’ unless we do something quite unusual, along the lines of becoming a missionary or drastically changing our lifestyle … so we wistfully read this story once again this Epiphany season, and then go back to our nets and our ordinary lives as if this story were not about us, and this call were not ours, too”.
It is for people like us, people who dismiss this story because we just can’t relate to it, that the season of epiphany can still change and transform us, as Jesus continues to surprise us, showing up in unexpected places. Epiphany is described by the theologian Fred Cradock as a time when the whisper of the baby Jesus in Bethlehem becomes a shout heard around the world. Last week we heard this shout proclaims good news to the poor and hope for the downtrodden; we heard it proclaim an end to the boundaries and distinctions of the world. We heard a shout so crisp to make it clear that all people are created in the image of God and that all are loved by God.
But, the reality is that this shout that sounds like the Gospel to the so-called outsider is threatening and feared by those who consider themselves insiders. Last week we saw how Jesus’ message, that everyone is deserving of God’s love, healing, and prosperity, falls on deaf ears and blind eyes in his own hometown of Nazareth. In fact, his own people’s rejection was so strong that they tried to throw him off a cliff and he had no choice but to pass right through them and move out to Galilee, a region where Jew and non-Jew lived side by side rubbing shoulders with one another. It was here in this multi-ethnic area where at last his message was accepted. Here he found such an enthusiastic audience that he needs a boat to get out in the shallow water to address the great crowd hungry for his message.
For me who grew up in a segregated society in South Africa it seems interesting that Jesus chose to go to Galilee and not Jerusalem, to start his ministry. That he is willing to go outside his own circle and reach out to those who just couldn’t measure up to the purity laws that existed…the poor, the blind, the debtors, and a host of “others”.
It is this perspective on Jesus that makes me thinks anew what it means to “leave everything and follow him”. As someone who literally left everything behind in South Africa twelve years ago and came to the United States to minister here, I realized that it was not so much my family and my possessions I had to leave behind, but a mindset…a conversion, so to speak, of thought and perspective. What I needed to leave behind was the notion that being Christian is synonymous with being white and from European descent. The notion that the way we worship and express our faith is the right way, indeed the only way. The notion that there is a limited amount of resources and if we spend it on “them” there will not be enough for us.
It seems to me if we truly want to follow Jesus, we do not have to leave our homes and families, and we do not have to live in the streets of faraway places…to go to Galilee. It seems to me that there are plenty of challenges, plenty of possibilities, and a very clear call to serve right here in Bloomington MN. It was once again an eye opener when Beth and I put our house on the market, to hear that we have a great house in a great neighborhood here in Bloomington, but … the only negative is that we are in the Kennedy School District. Now we all know the reason why this remark was made, not because of the teachers of Kennedy or of the school building, but because of the student body which is reflective of the diverse population of Bloomington. It is this mindset that masks the racism we face in a state that takes pride in being “Minnesota nice”, embraces family values, and thinks of itself as being more progressive. For a church that has made the decision to be intentionally multi-cultural, it is this mindset we are called to leave behind; in fact it is this mindset we are called to eradicate.
This morning God challenges us anew to get outside our own circle, our own comfortable world to hear the good news, and to experience our lives transformed by it. God is calling us anew to step out, beyond the sturdy walls of our long-held assumptions, the protective walls of this still new, but already comforting and comfortable sanctuary, the carefully constructed, well-decorated walls that stand between us and those who are "different" from us.
The good news this morning is that we do not have to be anxious or afraid in this pursuit as we hear in this morning's reading the word "abundance." Kate Huey writes “that one can only imagine “that Jesus wants to say so much that he needs more than words to express the abundance of God's love and the overflowing power of God's grace, ‘far more than all we could ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20). So he decides to show them as well. Jesus urges the seasoned but tired fishermen to strike back out into the deep rather than head safely home after a long day. The yield that day is more than enough to convince them that something really big is happening here, and in their encounter with Jesus they become keenly aware that life holds much more possibility than simply fishing for fish.”
Well, I am here to tell you that something really big is happening, and can continue to happen here at Oak Grove Presbyterian Church. We have new members joining us from near and far and are blessed by their presence among us. Our challenge is to truly welcome all to become part of us, to be open to their leadership, and to allow Oak Grove to become something new, a new creation, so that with the Apostle Paul we can say the old life is gone, a new life has begun.
To be this new creation we have to be multi-cultural, not in name only, but in substance… a church home where everyone’s gifts are welcomed and embraced; a place so visible of the radical all-inclusive love of God that people who drive by on Penn Avenue and Old Shakopee can say that indeed there is something going on in that building…something so transformative, where race is celebrated for the diversity it brings, knowing that God created us different so each one of us can teach the other something about God and something about being human. It is then, that people who drive by can say that Oak Grove Presbyterian Church is indeed a place where life is so much more than just fishing for fish.
Kate Huey 2010. http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/february-7-2010.html
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